Emotion
by ChibiZink
Summary: Late one night, Cyborg reflections on his relationship with Raven. CyborgRaven ONESHOT.


Note: This is my first, new Teen Titans fic. It is a Raven/Cyborg fic and is only a one-shot, but the way it turned out and all the effort I put in to it makes me just as happy and proud of this fic as if I had just finished my magnum opus "Peach Girl" fic. Anyway, I hope you all enjoy it.

And I'd like to thank my beta who gave me good concrit and some encouragement and my best friend who also helped inspire me to write this. Thanks guys!

Disclaimer: Teen Titans does not belong to me. It's the property of DC and others.

**Emotion**

Cyborg sat in the garage looking at the piles of spare parts and tools leftover from the many projects he'd undertaken in his spare time. The T-car, the T-ship, and a multitude of other things, mostly harmless but some were dangerous. Like the rocket-canon that had exploded as soon as he tested it. However, most of the things he made were to benefit the team and the people they were helping.

A part of him wondered why he built as much as he did. Perhaps it was a way to avoid the knowledge that he'd never have biological children of his own. Glancing down at the metal covering his arm he painfully shook his head at as reality sunk in. Shoving the unpleasant thought aside, he lumbered towards some of the parts lying on the floor. Today he was finally getting around to sorting them out and putting them away in an orderly fashion. As he picked up each piece his thought wandered back to how they got there in the first place. Each had its own memory attached to it and they were all filed away in his mind, making it a semi-pleasant trip through memory lane. Cyborg compared it to looking through an old photo album and remembering what you were doing the moment that picture was taken, albeit more hands on than a trip to the beach.

Sorting through a large pile of car parts his mind wandered to the incident that surrounded the rebuilt T-car. If anything could be called his "child", that was it. When the virus had taken over its core memory and the car ended up getting totaled he truly felt like a part of him had, in a way, died. However, someone was there to put it straight, to make him want to rebuild it. He glanced at his half metal, half flesh face reflected in the shiny metal of a piece that had been intended for use on one of the doors and grimaced to himself. There was no way she'd want to be with someone like him; after all, he wasn't legally a human. A knock at the door brought him out of his silent musing.

"Come on in!" He called, tossing the part into the ever growing pile of car parts.

"Robin wants to know if you're going to be coming up for dinner or if you're going to be eating later," a stern female voice said from behind him.

Cyborg easily recognized that voice. It belonged to Raven, the other female member of the Titans. Although slightly dour at times and rather serious, she cared about her friends in her own odd way. Maybe it was her upbringing and the way that she hadn't kept her from helping people, but something about Raven interested Cyborg and over time they had developed an easy, if strange, friendship.

"Tell him I'm gonna be a while," he replied, looking over his shoulder. She was leaning in the doorway, blocking some of the light that would have flooded in from the rather brightly lit stairwell. He felt his heart slightly skip and turned around quickly to pick up the large, extra carburetor he had for the T-car in case it needed a new one.

"In other words, you're not going to be eating with us tonight." She stated in a matter of fact way as she turned to go up the stairs. "Just make sure that you get yourself something later." she added, in a low voice that had a strangely motherly tone to it. Then she was gone, and the light filtered in.

Raven was the one who had encouraged Cyborg to rebuild the totaled T-car; she even offered to help. They worked on that car together for a couple of weeks, most of the time in a comfortable silence. When they did talk, it usually got on the subject of his past or what other members of the team were doing. She didn't speak much, just listened most of the time and it was a great way to get things off his chest. He also didn't interrupt her with inane comments when she would speak, so he wondered if she liked that he would listen to her. He remembered her asking him onetime why he was constantly building things.

"_Cyborg," Raven asked as she came out from under the frame of the new T-car, "why do you spend so much time here?"_

_Cyborg was surprised. He stared at her slightly greasy and dirty form and shrugged before going back to fixing up the engine. It needed to be custom built for the T-car; regular engines were too small to provide enough power he needed for the functions he planned on putting in the T-car._

"_I don't really know." He lied, screwing in the last of the bolts. Of course he knew why, but he didn't feel like discussing it. He bent down for a new wrench when a pale hand appeared in front of his face holding it. He took it without a word; it was rather nice not having to tell her what he needed. _

"_I think you do," she said as she watched him work, "and I want to know." _

"_Well think about it, it's not that hard to figure out." He said rather sharply, pulling the wrench towards him as he finished screwing the bolt in. Suddenly she pinched the fleshy part of his arm. _

_She pinched it hard._

"_What the hell was that for?" He asked angrily, rubbing his arm._

"_You're not only a cyborg, you're also human. Don't forget that," Raven said tersely, giving him a look that clearly said what she was thinking. "You're still human, Cyborg, whether you like it or not__Remember that."_

_Cyborg hung his head for a moment, forgetting what he was supposed to be doing. Of course he was human but was he more human than machine? It was surprising, though, having Raven see through his screen. It had bothered him that he couldn't have children, so he poured his energies into making things out of metal. After a while he began to see himself more as a machine than as a man, and he'd begun to ignore some of his own feelings. Suddenly he felt bad about acting like jerk. _

_After all, at least _he_ could express his emotions._

He had apologized to her later.

After she had helped him rebuild the T-car, she would occasionally help with upgrades to the Tower's security system or with repairing the outside. He wondered if she did it to relieve herself of her own loneliness or if it was because she didn't want to be stuck inside with Beast Boy all day. Either way, he enjoyed her company and from there he'd begun to feel something more for his dark haired team mate. It was odd; she was the last person he'd think he'd get a crush on, but sometimes fate likes to deal an odd hand. It never progressed from there though, just the occasional sidelong glance when they working on the together or when they were in the Tower with each other, nothing more.

The main problem was that Cyborg just didn't know how to approach her. He hadn't had much experience with girls; he met his first (and so far, only) girlfriend after had gotten stuck 3000 years in the past and she wasn't anything like Raven.. Plus, from what he knew of Raven, she'd reject him- and that was what he feared the most. He didn't want to risk ruining their friendship. He didn't want to it would turn into the awkward, tense balancing act that he'd seen others go through. So he felt it best to keep things to himself.

So here he was, sitting in a garage late at night sorting tool parts when he could be on date, or at least having some sort of social life outside of the Titans. He was mostly finished; the last thing he needed to do was put the large boxes away. As he bent down to pick up a particularly large one, the size of refrigerator, a dark energy enveloped it and placed in the back of the room against the wall. Surprised, Cyborg turned around to find Raven standing in the doorway.

"It's nearly midnight," She said as she walked into the room, glancing at the huge boxes that crowded the area where Cyborg stood, "Shouldn't you be finished by now?"

"Sorry 'bout that; I guess I got distracted." He admitted sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head. He picked up the box in front of him and moved it to the back of the room. Raven just shrugged and used her power to help. She didn't need an invitation; she'd worked with Cyborg enough to know that her help was appreciated. They were done in fifteen minutes.

"Why are you up anyway?" Cyborg asked as he locked up the door leading to the garage. She was a night owl, he knew that much, but he didn't expect her to be up and looking for him this late.

"Couldn't sleep." She said in her usual, slightly monotone voice. "I noticed you weren't in your room because the lock-down program hadn't been initiated, so I came down her to see how you were doing." she added, following him up the stairs. That struck him as odd; he'd been up late before and she hadn't searched him out. Why was she doing it now?

"That's great. So why did you come down here? I didn't really need any help y'know." He asked, curious as to why she'd do something that, while not out of character, was a bit of a surprise. He didn't really need checking up on; if anyone of the Titans needed it, it would have to be Beast Boy. Lord knows what kind of trouble he could get into, even if he didn't mean it. Cyborg felt a bit sorry for him in that respect.

"I can check up on a friend can't I?" She asked in a slightly miffed tone.

Great, he managed to offend her.

"Sorry," he simply said as he opened the door at the top of the stairs, holding it open for her. If he didn't know better, he though he caught a trace of a smile on her lips as she walked into the room.

"I understand," she replied just as simply. There wasn't much of a need for words between the two of them. Together they ascended the stairs that led up to the living room of the tower. Cyborg's stomach suddenly growled along the way, making him blush for a moment in embarrassment. He hadn't eaten since breakfast, and that had been at eight in the morning. Raven looked at him with an odd half grin, half smirk on her face.

"You should have eaten when I first came down to get you," she said knowingly, a tone that she rarely used. Cyborg raised his eyebrows; that usually meant that something was up. She'd used it before when she scolded Beast Boy for being late after he missed the horror movie marathon at a theater downtown. Of course he'd asked Cyborg about it afterwards when he got out of theater- Beast Boy had waited for his friend to get out of the theater before going home. If anything, he was at least a loyal friend.

When they reached the main room, he headed straight for the fridge. Much to his horror, there wasn't much in there and he blanched at what was in there. There was some of Starfire's pudding, which he wouldn't eat even if he were starving, as well as some leftover tofu thing that Beast Boy had made the day before. Closing the fridge he sighed and walked over to the couch, plopping on to it with a muffled thud. He now understood why his friend had bristled at that knowing tone Raven had used.

Raven stared at her friend as he slouched on the couch. She felt a little sorry for him; it wasn't fun having nothing to eat in the house after you've worked hard all day. That was something she'd learned from helping him with his repairs around the tower and with his other little, and not so little, projects.

She'd also learned a bit more about the guy who acted like being the way he was didn't bother him.

After that day in the garage with the T-car, she'd come to a realization that he took things a bit more seriously than she gave him credit for. His love of all things mechanical had more to do with just figuring out a way to make something work, but more importantly was a subconscious way to replace the family he'd never have. Raven felt pity and a sadness she hadn't felt before rise in her when she thought about it, but suppressed it as quickly as she could. What little emotion that she could show wasn't really be enough to express what she felt the first time she thought about it. In essence they had more in common than she had thought at the time.

He mostly kept his thoughts to himself to keep people from worrying about him. When he had gone undercover at the Hive, Raven caught a glimpse of how much he missed being a normal teenager. She had forgotten that he'd told her about the accident that had made him into what he was now. The joy of just being seen as a normal human must have been indescribable. Yet, he never complained about his cybernetic side and maybe that was the main difference between the two of them, she had thought. While Raven had long ago resigned herself to her fate, it didn't keep her from being envious of the "normal" lives that most people seemed to lead. She had mentioned a couple of times how she wished that she didn't have powers to Cyborg and he just didn't say anything. At the time she wondered how he did it, how he kept from thinking that maybe he would have been better off if he hadn't been made into what he was. The only answer she could come up with was that he'd just become used to it.

But after seeing him revel in being a normal teenager, she wasn't so sure that he was complacent. It hit her like a brick when she stumbled across him sitting on the roof one day, looking at old pictures from when he was normal.

_He just wants to be…human_, she had thought.

Maybe that's when she began to think about him differently. Their differences were mainly noticeable in the way they had handled their own situations. Raven had heard about what his "dark side" had said to him during their fight from Beast Boy and thought about how much that must of hurt him. She knew that Cyborg wouldn't tell her himself what he thought about it. They both put their own feelings aside for the sake of others, all of the Titans did, but perhaps they did it the most. Robin was rather easy to read most of the time, as was Beast Boy. What went through Starfire's head was anyone's guess, but her moods weren't that hard to discern most of the time as well. Yet there was something impenetrable about the half man, half machine's face that made it hard to figure out what he was thinking most of the time and Raven didn't really tell others what she was thinking because she didn't want to discuss her thoughts with others.

That's probably why she liked working with Cyborg. He didn't ask her what was going on (most of the time) and she didn't feel like she had to share. Something about Robin's overbearing presence, Starfire's naivete, and Beast Boy's hyperactivity made her feel pressured at times to share her thoughts. Cyborg's laid back approach , on the other hand, just made her feel comfortable. When there wasn't conversation, sometimes he'd fill it in with some old Gospel songs or the latest R&B hit. It was just easy to relax and work with him. The two of them had come to share a quiet bond with each other, one that came to surpass the bond they had formed after Cyborg and Beast Boy were sucked into her mirror.

Slowly, she'd begun to question her feelings about him. Was he just a really good friend? Or was he more? Did she want him to be more? It was something that she couldn't answer herself and so she let the matter go, occasionally letting it surface. After he came back from the past, she had gotten out a history book and blindly looked over the pages until she had found what she was looking for. When she showed it too him, the look on his face was enough to make her happy, yet it triggered something inside of her as well. When she got back to her room she was surprised to find herself trying to figure out what was so special about that girl from the past. Jealousy was an emotion she hadn't felt much before and it scared her. Raven was not supposed to feel things like that towards other people and especially towards someone who had managed to capture the attention, however briefly, of Cyborg. That's when she startled herself. She had let someone worm their way into her heart enough for her to at least have a crush on them. Maybe even love them.

Still, she wasn't sure how he'd react to that, especially since he was still upset about leaving the girl behind when she'd realized her feelings for him.

So she didn't act on it. It wasn't like she was going to anyway, it wouldn't be like her. Besides, who knows how many cars, lights, whatever would have been blown up if he'd rejected her or had accepted her. Plus she had hoped that the feelings would pass and become a distant memory.

Well, here she was and the feelings were still there, stronger than ever.

"Hey," she said softly, getting Cyborg's attention, "why don't you go out and get something? I'm sure someone's still open." She turned around to make her way out of the room.

Cyborg hadn't thought of that and silently hit himself on the forehead for forgetting about that. Now that he thought about it, there was great Chinese food restaurant that was open until 3 am on the weekends and he was in luck; it was a Friday. So technically it was a Saturday by now, but all that mattered was that the restaurant was open. He noticed her cape swish slightly behind her as she turned to leave.

As he watched her leave, he suddenly knew- not thought, he_ knew_- this was now or never.

"Hey, Rae," he started, getting up off the couch and walking towards her as she turned around, "do you want to come with me? I know a great Chinese restaurant that's open right about now." Cyborg felt his heart speed up as he waited her answer. He wouldn't blame her if she turned him down; after all she had already eaten and it was approaching one in the morning-

At least that's what he told himself.

Raven stared at him for a moment. Was he asking her out on a date? Or was he just being friendly? Something told her to take him up on his offer. Besides, she told herself, she was kind of hungry and a late night meal didn't sound to bad. She gave him a small smile and nodded, feeling her heart speed up slightly before suppressing her emotions enough to prevent the explosion of a lamppost or car.

Cyborg didn't have to worry about those kind of things. Still, he though that his chest would explode as they both got into the T-car and made their way to Jump City's China Town. The Chuang Hua bakery and restaurant was lightly populated that late at night, most of the patrons having gone home or to one of the clubs in the trendy Greenlane district downtown. It was rather nice not having to worry about people staring at them, whispering about why they would be out this late at night. They actually had a rather good time as making some small talk and some rather surprising discoveries about each other during the large meal. Raven didn't know that Cyborg was into Poe and he had no clue that she occasionally listened to Kanye West. As the paid for their food and took their leftovers with them, they both felt an ease that had eluded them.

"I had a nice time," Raven said as she stuffed the left over Chinese food into the fridge. Cyborg nodded in agreement as he stretched out on the couch, his belly full of good food and flipped on the T.V. An old black and white movie from the 40's showed up on screen. Raven sat down next to him.

"Oh, I like this movie. It's "Rear Window" by Hitchcock." She mentioned casually and Cyborg looked over at her.

"I didn't know you liked old movies." He said, amused, as he put the remote down and looked up at the screen.

"Surprised?" She chuckled slightly before explaining that she had thing for the old black and white films, and that Hitchcock was perhaps the master of the thriller/horror film. The two of them sat on the couch, watching the Hitchcock movie marathon that Cyborg had happened across until they fell asleep, with Raven leaning on Cyborg.

_So they slept, a half demon _

_...and a half cyborg_

_...both far more human than they realized_.


End file.
